Great stuff, it works!
I didn’t have everything needed on my Mac, so I had to install some bits and bobs - now, all’s ok…
Anyway, for anyone else reading this but unfamiliar with the MacOS Terminal, my steps were:
1 You need Python v3 and YAML for the scripts to work. I only had Python 2.7: this comes with your MacOS installation and is best left untouched. I first installed Homebrew (a ‘package manager’ for MacOS) via the ‘bash command’ found on the Homebrew homepage https://brew.sh (the text on the site needs to be pasted into your MacOS Terminal app)
2 Having installed Homebrew, I used it to install Python3 (by typing ‘brew install python3’ into the Terminal)
3 I also didn’t have YAML installed (or, rather the Python version of YAML, PyYAML). There seems to be a Homebrew method to install, but I got YAML via the pip3 command found on the official YAML page (pip/pip3 is included in the Python2/Python3 installation) and typed in ‘pip3 install pyyaml’. (Nota Bene - YAML itself is a just file format; not something you install on your computer proper, like the Python installation)
Then:
4 I downloaded the scripts from Wyess’s Github page and placed them onto the desktop.
5 In Terminal, I navigated to the desktop by typing ‘cd Desktop’. I recommend Googling for information on basic MacOS/bash Terminal usage and commands (such as cd ‘change directory’).
6 I created a folder for the scripts by typing ‘mkdir wyess’ (step not necessary: this was just to tidy them up off the desktop)
7 dragged the Python scripts into the wyess folder
8 I entered the folder by typing ‘cd Desktop/wyess’
9 ‘ I didn’t have the necessary (Terminal) rights to read, write and execute for these files, so I had to modify my rights for the files. This may be because, on the Github page, I clicked the ‘raw’ button instead of the ‘clone or download’ and ‘download ZIP’ buttons. If you are the owner of the file, but do not have all the read/write/execute rights, you can change the file's permissions with a Terminal command such as 'chmod u+rwx ./*.py’.
10 I typed ‘ls -ltr’ to check that the rights had indeed changed.
11 Typing ‘./will2svg.py filename.will’ into the Terminal is enough to generate the resultant, centrelined svg file, called filename.svg.
Great work, Wyess - I’m sure these scripts will be of much help to Wacom Bamboo Slate users - thanks a lot for your help!
Please find attached the exported SVG file of a line/pressure test and a photo of the paper drawing for comparison. In case it's useful to you guys, I'm also attaching the original WILL file of the test.
I'm not very familiar with it, but WILL is Wacom's native 'vector ink' format in which the Bamboo Slate (and Intuos Pro Paper Edition, I think) records your work. They have even provided an SDK for others to use:
- https://developer-docs.wacom.com/display/DevDoc/WILL+SDK+for+ink+-+File+Format (see 'WILL Architectural Overview' for details on the WILL file format and its use of SVG)
- http://www.wacom.com/en-us/enterprise/will
- http://developer.wacom.com/en-us/will-sdk-digital-ink
I am drawing on a Wacom Bamboo Slate, which can export your drawings (and writing via a kind of OCR) to text, image formats and SVG. Here's Wacom's specs for the Slate: http://www.wacom.com/en/products/smartpads/bamboo-slate#Specifications
The Slate's ballpoint pen is marketed as having 1024 levels of pressure which in theory seems a bit much for a ballpoint pen, but would be nice if it could reproduce the light and heavy strokes you have made on paper.
My problem is that the SVG files exported from Wacom's Inkspace app are filled black shapes instead of strokes. The shapes are thicker than the original paper lines, losing most of the line width variance, and I cannot find a way to reduce the width as you would with a stroke. I am attaching an image to illustrate my problem.
Any thoughts on how to convert these shapes into strokes so that I could make them thinner?
Many thanks in advance!
PS there may be an answer in the thread below ('line width is not yet fully supported in the SVG standard'), but I'd like to confirm if something can be done about this using Affinity Designer?
Dmitry got a reaction from Wyess in Wacom Bamboo Slate to Affinity Designer: SVG export issue
Dmitry got a reaction from SrPx in Wacom Bamboo Slate to Affinity Designer: SVG export issue